The stock market opened the week on a high note, with the Dow and S&P 500 closing up nearly 0.5% and the NASDAQ up over 1% (helped in part by Apple (AAPL), our Stock of the Day).
Clearly, some of last week’s optimism surrounding the Fed announcement carried over to this week. This is truly the happiest time of year (with just two days left until Christmas). But if you haven’t yet on holiday vacation, there are plenty of things you can do to keep your portfolio trim and fit.
I do continue to recommend that you stay well-diversified and use periods of market strength to “trim” some profits in the hottest stocks that outpace the rest of the market. I also recommend that you continue running your positions through my Portfolio Grader screening tool.
On that note, let’s look at these stocks which have been upgraded and downgraded this weekend. Over the weekend I noticed 41 big-name stocks were on the move and have revised their ratings to reflect the latest data. I’ll start with the eight stocks that have been upgraded to buys.
Upgrades
Last Week’s Holds, Now Buys
| Symbol | Company Name | Quantitative Grade | Fundamental Grade |
| AMGN | Amgen | B | B |
| AZO | AutoZone | B | C |
| ESRX | Express Scripts | B | C |
| IR | Ingersoll-Rand | B | C |
| MHFI | McGraw Hill | B | B |
| MRK | Merck | B | C |
| MSI | Motorola | C | B |
| PAYX | Paychex | B | C |
| SRE | Sempra Energy | B | C |
Last Week’s Sells, Now Holds
| Symbol | Company Name | Quantitative Grade | Fundamental Grade |
| CPB | Campbell Soup | C | C |
| CXO | Concho Resources | C | C |
| EL | Estee Lauder | D | C |
| ING | ING Groep | C | C |
| KRFT | Kraft Foods Group | D | C |
| KYO | Kyocera | C | C |
| LLTC | Linear Technology | C | C |
| MO | Altria Group | D | B |
| RAI | Reynolds American | D | C |
| REGN | Regeneron Pharmaceutical | D | B |
| SYK | Stryker | C | C |
| TOT | Total SA | C | C |
Downgrades
Last Week’s Buys, Now Holds
| Symbol | Company Name | Quantitative Grade | Fundamental Grade |
| FITB | Fifth Third Bancorp | C | B |
| HIG | The Hartford | C | C |
| MFG | Mizuho Financial Group | C | B |
| MHK | Mohawk Industries | C | B |
| MS | Morgan Stanley | C | C |
| NMR | Nomura Holdings | C | C |
| STX | Seagate Technology | B | C |
| TM | Toyota Motor | C | C |
Last Week’s Holds, Now Sells
| Symbol | Company Name | Quantitative Grade | Fundamental Grade |
| A | Agilent Technologies | D | C |
| BK | Bank of New York Mellon | D | C |
| BRFS | BRF SA | D | C |
| HMC | Honda | D | C |
| HOT | Starwood Hotels & Resorts | D | B |
| KLAC | KLA-Tencor Corporation | D | C |
| KMX | CarMax | D | B |
| MUR | Murphy Oil | D | C |
| NTAP | NetApp | D | B |
| NTRS | Northern Trust | D | C |
| RCI | Rogers Communications | D | C |
| SDRL | Seadrill | D | B |
